Morris's Code

“I need to learn Morris’s code,” demands a voice that sounds far too young to be demanding things.

Sheila looks up from her desk, surprised to see an eight-year-old face barely reaching over the library counter. The boy has the worst case of bedhead she has ever seen and he is still in his pajamas. Forty years at Bridgeview library has lulled Sheila into its patterns. Saturday morning means a few people her age quietly shuffling through the shelves and some morning joggers returning books. Young boys without their parents on missions to learn old military communications is, if anything, a Wednesday after school activity. 

“Do you mean Morse code?” she asks while pushing her glasses up her nose and accidentally smudging ink all over her face. 

“Is that the one with the lights?” he responds, slightly less sure of himself. 

“Or sounds, it is quite versatile. One of the reasons it’s still used today. Sometimes old things still work,” Sheila says, gesturing at her own mission of sorts. The boy runs around the counter to see a machine he has only heard about in movies and seen once at his grandfather’s house.

“Woah, what is that?” he asks. She smiles and rubs her forehead, worsening the ink problem. Before she can answer, her coworker Bob pops around the counter.

“That is a piece of junk. We work at the library with the best technology in a hundred mile radius and Sheila messes with this thing every week, trying to get it to work. Only thing she does is spread ink all over herself.”

“I think it’s cool,” the boy says, standing by Sheila. For the first time in years, she feels a little less obsolete. She grabs a tissue and looks this boy in the eyes. 

“What’s your name?”

“David.”

“Alright David, let’s go learn Morse code,” she says. Without a word to Bob, she whisks David further into the library. Bob would need the computer to find the Morse code book. Her search will be short. She knows the exact shelf and color of the book, a horrid military green. 

“What are you doing with the old machine?” the boy asks and Sheila realizes with a laugh that he is talking about the typewriter on her desk. She really is that old. The question takes her back in time to when that typewriter was the newest technology in a hundred mile radius. 

She got that typewriter as a gift from Henry on their first anniversary. He put the big wooden box right on her desk. He was never one to wrap gifts or write letters. He never got the details in life quite right. He painted the walls of their living room burgundy instead of brown. He got her tulips when she asked for roses. But he always got the big things right. Written in black marker on the box was a mission she carried with her everyday, “For your dreams to become stories.” He believed in her far more than she did herself.

Which is why the typewriter sat as unused as her dreams. After Henry died, she put it back in that same box and put it facedown in the garage, his words of encouragement a whisper unheard. Until a few months ago when for reasons unknown to herself, she wrestled it out of the garage and onto her desk at the library. Every day, to the annoyance of Bob, she loudly fought the typewriter back into life. 

She couldn’t explain it. Unlike all the days she spent sitting in front of the typewriter blinded by the white paper in front of her, she didn’t feel the pressure to tell a story. Usually when she wanted to write, the story sat on her chest refusing to let her get a full breath in until she let it out. This time, she didn’t have a story in her chest. Instead, she couldn’t stop this feeling in her heart that someone else did. 

“I’m getting it all ready so someone can tell a story, David,” she replied, bringing herself back to reality at row 19 in Bridgeview library, “It’s a typewriter. They are much better for writing than a computer. You never get distracted and you can’t doubt yourself and erase everything you’re writing. Instead, you have to commit to telling a story and just keep going.”

“That’s cool. It looks like a time machine,” David says as he finally starts to comb back his bed head. Sheila smiles as she pulls out the Morse code book that was tucked into the exact spot she thought it was. Before handing him the book, she has some questions.

“Now, I need to know why you need this book. Are you on a secret military mission?” She smiles but suddenly David looks a lot less animated than before. 

“I don’t know if I should tell you,” he says while biting his tongue and looking out the window, “No one believes me.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t tell Bob. Because he definitely won’t believe you. His imagination doesn’t stretch very far.”

“But you will?” he asks, reaching for the book.

“Most certainly,” Sheila says, feeling more alive than she has in years. She knows that in all likelihood she is about to hear an outlandish tale that has no business being true, but she isn’t lying. She wants to believe him.

“There is a streetlight right outside my bedroom window. Five nights ago it started flickering in these strange patterns. Sometimes it blinks on for one second, sometimes longer. It goes on all night. Then, in the morning, instead of turning off with all the other ones, it shines all day. So the lightbulb isn’t dead. Someone is trying to tell me something. I’m sure of it. But my parents won’t believe me. They won’t even let me use their phones to look up Morris’s code. My grandpa always used to say you could find anything at the library, that’s why I came here.”

Sheila nods along and despite common sense, she is highly invested in this story. 

“So who do you think it is? Who would be communicating with you?” she asks and David starts to look nervous. 

“Well this is the part that my parents won’t believe. Actually, no one does,” he shrugs and crosses his arms. Sheila gets down to his level and looks him in the eyes.

“You’re in the library, David. This is where all stories are true.”

“Well, the thing is that I have an imaginary friend named Morris. I'm serious! That is what makes this all so interesting. You see, he is only imaginary because no one else can see him. But he’s real. He goes with me to school, helps me with my homework, and then at night we go on adventures together.”

“Where do you go?” Sheila asks, motioning for him to continue. 

“He can do this really cool thing. Any pattern that you see, he can make it come to life. You know when you look at the clouds and see animals and houses and dragons? Well when I look at the sky with Morris we look so closely at the patterns we go into their world. One time, we looked at the sky and saw a bunny and a spaceship. Then, he took me into the clouds and we rode on the spaceship catching bunnies all day. Look at the carpet,” David says, lying on the ground and spreading his hand over green and beige checkers.

“I’m looking at the carpet,” Sheila says while looking down but refusing to lie down. There are some limits to being 83, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. 

“What do you see?” he asks. 

Sheila sees beige and green checkers. Her imagination doesn’t work like a child’s anymore. She doesn’t look at the sky and see bunnies and spaceships. But, she pushes harder, not wanting to admit she is too old to dream. 

“I see an endless chess board with giant balls of dust perilously rolling around,” she says and David’s face lights up.

“And do you see this,” he says, pointing at a divot in the carpet from when the shelves moved last month, “this is a ditch that travelers have to cross. In order to make it safely from one side to the other, you can only step on the green. The beige sends you into a never-ending pit.”

“I see what you mean,” Sheila says smiling.

“If Morris were here, we would be in that world right now, balancing on the green squares.”

“He sounds like a great friend.”

“He is. And he went missing five days ago– exactly when the light started flickering. I think he got trapped in a world and needs me to get him out. I have to help him. He is my only friend,” David says, starting to tear up a little. Sheila puts an arm around his shoulder and the book in his hands. Just as she is about to suggest they read it together, a woman races around the corner shouting, 

“David? David! Thank god you are alive.”

She pulls David out of Sheila’s arms and into hers. She looks more disheveled than David. No make up and a sweatshirt pulled over pajamas, she is a mom recovering from full panic mode. 

“I am so sorry. He just wandered out of the house all by himself. I don’t even know how he knew where the library was. We only moved here a few months ago and he's lonely. Thank you so much for keeping him safe,” she says to Sheila before turning to her son, “You can never do that again. I was so scared. We are going home. Give the book to the nice lady.”

David looks at Shiela in panic and her heart fills. 

“Oh this is the library, you can take books home.”

“We don’t even have a library card. I don’t have the time or all the paperwork to set one up. I’m so sorry. David, the book,” his mom says, grabbing for the book. 

“Books are meant to be read. He can keep the book,” Sheila says and the mom thanks her as she grabs David’s hand and pulls him out of the library with her. He waves to Sheila and puts his index finger to his mouth. Sheila nods, his secret is safe with her. 

A week later David shuffles back into the library. His hair is combed and he is wearing an adorable crew neck sweater, but he has never looked sadder. 

“What happened David?” Sheila says, immediately leaving her desk to meet him at the door. Ever since meeting David, worry and wonder have been fighting for space in her head. She spent all week using the dumb computer to fix her typewriter, inspired to finish a mission of her own. 

“It didn’t work. My parent’s called the village and they permanently turned off the street lamp. Now he’s stuck! I’ll never be able to see Morris again,” David says, barely able to say the last part before he breaks down. Sheila wraps her arms around him. She can’t help feeling sad herself because a small, illogical yet hopeful part of her believed in Morris too, 

“He’s not gone, David. We can save him,” she says. She moves into action by grabbing two tissues, one for his tears and one the ink ever-present on her face.

“But how? I’ll do anything,” he says, sniffling. Sheila pulls him around to her desk.

“Remember how you called my typewriter a time machine? Well it's working again. And while it cannot take us back in time. It can do magic. It can turn dreams into stories. And, remember what I said? In libraries, stories are always true.” 

“So Morris isn’t dead?”

“Nope. He just needs us to help him come to life.”